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The Lackawanna County commissioners will survive to govern another day.

Turning their backs on an opportunity to fundamentally change how the county is run, voters on Tuesday soundly rejected a proposal to scrap the three-member Board of Commissioners and replace it with an elected executive and seven-member council.

Standing in the doorway of Mert’s, where some county workers were celebrating the outcome, majority Commissioner Corey O’Brien said voters “understood the issue that was confronting them and made their choice.”

“It was their victory, not ours,” he said.

He said he hopes county residents can put the divisiveness of the referendum behind them and work together to better the county.

Majority Commissioner Jim Wansacz said the more people learned about the proposed new form of government, the less appealing it looked, especially given insurance executive Chuck Volpe’s involvement.

Volpe, who headed the Government Study Commission that recommended the change, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars promoting the initiative. In the months leading up to the election, Wansacz and O’Brien repeatedly questioned Volpe’s motives in leading the effort.

“I’m proud of the voters,” Wansacz said. “They didn’t allow one person to buy the government. They said our government is not for sale to the highest bidder.”

The result means the county will continue to operate under the home-rule charter it adopted 36 years ago, including the three-commissioner system that has governed the county since its founding in 1878.

Speaking to a subdued but supportive crowd at the Radisson at Lackawanna Station hotel, Volpe said some fights need to be fought, and victories don’t always come at the time of the battle.

“I will be paying attention and watching and when I see something that’s wrong and needs to be addressed, then I will do so,” Volpe said.

Elected in the 2013 primary, the seven-member study commission recommended the switch to the optional plan executive-council form after months of study. Under state law, a referendum on the same ballot question cannot take place for at least four years.

Advocates of the executive-council government maintained it would end corruption, promote transparency, limit real-estate tax increases and provide greater checks and balances by separating executive and legislative functions.

Opponents countered the new government would be costlier and bigger, with 17 elected officials versus the 11 now. They also argued there would less accountability, saying voters now have the power to replace all three commissioners every four years if they do not like the direction of county government.

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